Celebrating Our Community

London Olympics 2012

London Olympics 2012

In early 2012 there were plenty of Olympic meetings in the Xoomworks office reminiscent of the infamous Y2K bug period. All the news in the global press and advice we were receiving at London business seminars left us in no doubt that working in London was going to be sheer chaos over this period and a nightmare for our community.

So what happened? Well it turned out to be one of the greatest sporting events in our city’s history and we at Xoomworks had the time of our lives.

Here are a few Xoomie stories from colleagues, friends and FOXs to celebrate our experiences of this unforgettable time:

We should have known that great things were ahead when we were lucky enough to be invited by our friends at HemiHelp to join them in the first Olympic stadium parade event in April 2012 and then we amazingly won a competition to field a “4×100 metre” relay team in an event to test the new track – which we came second in.

Before the Olympics began our very own wonder-girl Holly Holmes was selected to be an official Torch Bearer. A huge gathering of Xoomies, friends and family took the afternoon off work to soak up the sun and support Holly.

Her proud father and our very own superstar Jamie Holmes wrote this beautiful piece on our blog.

Onto the Olympics themselves and plenty of Xoomies were fortunate enough to grab one of the scarce tickets and to enjoy the spectacle itself. Our Managing Director Nic took his family down to Weymouth to watch the epic battle for GB Gold

Above you can see Swiss Family Hutch down at the Weymouth Olympic area sat on The Nothe, enjoying the sun, unexpected brilliant atmosphere, mad Irish sailing fans and Team GB hammering Team France in some very close match racing. Hurrah!

Throughout 2012 we at Xoomworks set ourselves a bonkers challenge of “trying to complete 2012 unique challenges with 2012 friends and family within our community”. We failed spectacularly but we had a real ball along the way with over two thirds of the company taking part in events such as dumper-truck riding, wake-boarding as well as the more mundane ‘running with Kalahari Bushmen in Botswana’

In the process we also became one of the Gold Challenge Top Fundraisers during the Olympics and again we were incredibly fortunate enough to win an opportunity to send our Xoomworks friend and FOX Tim Maynard to the Team GB House during the Olympics and to hang-out with some of the sporting world heroes (and David Walliams)

Tim just absolutely loved the experience and the guys at the Gold Challenge went crazy for his blog post.

Our final story is from Vai, a Xoomworks community evangelist, who was one of the true Olympics heroes – Paralympics Games volunteer.

Vai shares with us an insight into her once-in-a-lifetime experiences.

“Our experience at London2012 feels just like how it would when we make it to the hall of fame with name engraved on the wall – we made history. We were not just spectators, we were on the ground TWICE at Stratford getting our hands dirty from passing (what is the word for the thing you pass on the relay)running the relay to dancing in the opening ceremony for paralympics. I really wanted to write in bold “Hi Jamie” on my umbrella, so he would see it when the umbrellas lit up as the opening piece for paralympics. I loved that Jamie was there in the audience while we performed. As a volunteer, I felt like I was awarded this experience walking the grounds of world’s elitest athletes and thought hmm well they haven’t met the athletes I work with!!!

My friend put together this video – this is behind the scenes of paralympics opening ceremony to the music we danced to Some of our photos from the night attached – I can’t pick one! . One of them actually shows how I felt – on top of the world!!! ”